MandrakeSoft Improves Financial Health

joestar writes "MandrakeSoft's latest financial results have been posted to their website. Despite a slight decrease in revenues - mostly due to the dollar/euro rate and negative effects of the Chapter 11-like protection - first results seem impressive: "the company reduced operational expenses by a factor of 5, increased gross margins by a factor of 5 and reduced its losses by a factor of 7". As a result, MandrakeSoft has been cash-flow positive since January 2003, and expects its first positive result for the current quarter! Along with latest Mandrake Linux cool products, these are excellent news in my opinion because it shows that an appropriate business model can help Linux companies greatly."

Comments

Mandrake Move

[rf0]

Now mandrake move looks a cool idea in storing all the files on the move however what would be even better is a system which boots from a USB device. Now that would be cool

Rus

Mandrake is awesome

[iamdrscience]

I pretty much only use Debian for linux, but Mandrake is pretty cool. Mainly for how simple it is. It's a distro that I know I could give to most people (largely computer inexperienced) I know if they wanted to play with Linux. The simple installer is as easy as installing a *nix distro gets. Period. It is, in fact, easier than the Windows installer is.

Re:Mandrake is awesome

[TheWanderingHermit]

It's really nice to hear a Debian devotee praising Mandrake. I've been using Mandrake since I started seriously using Linux (my first exposure was Suse 6.4). I've tried Debian and, while I like apt, I found that I didn't have time to do all the setup things I needed to -- like setting up the mount points when I wanted to play DVDs (which isn't just for entertainment if you're doing video production). I respect Debian and the power it provides, but I prefer Mandrake, since I can get a production box up and running extremely quickly.

I've found it frustrating because many times I've heard people deride Mandrake because it is so easy to use, and I've especially heard a lot of Debian users deride it (then again, I've heard many Debian users deride anything BUT Debian). I've always thought there was a place for most of the distros out there, and Mandrake is great for beginners, or experienced users who need easy and quick installation.

I'm glad to hear from another distro user (especially an advanced one like Debian) recognizing the value of Mandrake.

Re:Mandrake is awesome

[Lane.exe]

Mandrake is good period. It's Linux. It's not like there's something other Linux distros do that Mandrake can't. Package management? urpmi. What advantage does apt have over urpmi? I can't think of one. Ease of install? Hands down to Mandrake. Ease of configuration? Drakconf, userdrak, diskdrak, wow... all easy to use and they do the same thing as any comparable configuration method.

Don't knock Mandrake simply because it can be easy to use. It's also just as powerful as anything else, provided you have the experience to use the power-user features. There's nothing that says "just because this system is more obtuse and harder to use must mean it's more powerful!" That's a misconception that a lot of people need to get out of their heads.

Re:Why does everyone care so much?

[ViolentGreen]

Mandrake is a good distro for new users. It is cake to partition, install and use. You don't have to know any command line applications to configure your system. While this may be true for other distros as well, Mandrake does this very well.

Alot of people, including myself, think that mandrake is the closest thing to a desktop linux for the masses currently available.

Re:good for them

[MoonFog]

I totally agree, and Mandrake is a great distro. I don't like SuSE's way of releasing their distro (ftp anyone?), and Redhat dropped the free version entirely, so for the desktop I usually recommend Mandrake for people just wanting to try Linux. I have great respect for their installer, which I find to be excellent!
IMHO this is great news, and as you say hopefully others will follow this model.

The latest version can be bought of Mandrake or downloaded from Linuxiso.org.
Feel like supporting ?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What?

[jmb-d]

Since when is "Chapter 11-like protection" a good business model??

Since staying in business is better than going out of business, quite a while.

In the early 90s, I worked for a company that filed for Chapter 11 protection while I was on vacation.

"D'ah!" thought I.

Not a terrible thing, really. Debt got restructured (read: our creditors took it in the a**), we got rid of a whole lot of things we didn't really need (read: way too much floorspace (including a no-longer-used manufacturing area)), and got out of a lease on said space, moving to a more appropriate-sized office at a much lower per-foot cost. Then came a couple of years of consecutive positive cash-flow, and *poof* we were out of Chapter 11. Never missed a paycheck, got raises during that time, etc.

No big deal from where I stand.

Would it have been better to have had a better handle on what was going on before it got to the point where Chapter 11 protection was necessary?

You bet.

Was it a handy way of saving the company?

Damn skippy.